NurMut – Interactive Music System for People with Dementia

The aim of the “NurMut” project is to develop an innovative and interactive music platform for people with dementia. It is geared towards patients who either live in nursing homes and rehabilitation centres or who live at home and are being looked after by relatives.The system can be adapted to both a professional therapeutical setting and to individual leisure time. Three scenarios have been created that provide the basis for the interaction design: First, individual listening to music by the use of streaming services, second, real-time participation in music therapy sessions and third, playing music that relates to the patient’s emotional state. By measuring indicative parameters associated with either stress and hyper activity or lethargy, the system will be able to individually address patients with music based sequences.
For the interaction design the challenge is to include the research partners as well as people with dementia into a participative design process, to handle different user interfaces and their different degrees of complexity and to explore motivational aspects of using the system.

The beneficial impact of music and the participation in music therapy to course of disease has been proven. Our task is now to design access to the technological platform and an enjoyable experience for people with dementia, their caretakers and music therapists.